National Fish and Wildlife Federation (NFWF) Bay to Bay Resilience Project
The 2021-2024 “Bay to Bay: Sea Level Rise Resilience in the Columbia River Estuary” project sought to assist locally-led efforts to reduce changing water levels’ impacts on people and habitats of Baker and Grays Bays, located on the Washington side of the lower Columbia. This project–led by the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership in partnership with Washington Sea Grant and the Pacific Conservation District–focused on looking at potential sea level rise impacts, how they relate to existing issues, and how we can respond to address present and future issues simultaneously in accordance with community visions and scientific information, in order to build a resilient system.
In both Baker and Grays Bays, the project team conducted outreach to better understand local priorities, historical context, and other issues; hosted public workshops to co-produce potential resilience actions and build community awareness of potential solutions; and assisted local organizations to scope resilience projects and apply for funds to take next steps. The project team sought to advance conversations about near-term and future resilience across Baker and Grays Bays.
The Bay to Bay project was funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s National Coastal Resilience Fund.
Wahkiakum Common Ground project
From the COHORT Inaugural Report:
Wahkiakum Common Ground was initiated by the Wahkiakum County Marine Resources Committee (MRC) and the Coastal Hazards Organizational Resilience Team (COHORT) in 2024 following the conclusion of the Bay to Bay project which identified the need for coordinated flood risk reduction projects across Wahkiakum County. Wahkiakum County’s ability to accomplish these resilience projects depends on a strong network of leaders who can work collaboratively across landowners, citizen leaders, municipalities, agencies, tribes, special districts, nonprofit organizations, and technical experts to find common ground as the springboard for achieving mutually desirable outcomes. To achieve this goal, four full-day workshops with 59 local leaders, agencies and technical experts from over 30 entities were convened between January and May of 2025. The workshops focused on a collaborative approach to sustaining a healthy environment, rural lifestyle, and vibrant economy. During each workshop, the participants learned about local successful watershed restoration projects through presentations and site visits. This workshop series helped build trust and relationships among local and regional leaders as a foundation for future collaboration.
Attendees worked together to synthesize the discussions that occurred throughout the workshops and developed a Guiding Principles document that could be used to help inform future watershed restoration efforts across the county. The group also identified potential projects and next steps, which included a priority to educate the broader public and residence about identified coastal resilience priorities, methodology, collaboration, and funding mechanisms. The team successfully secured an additional $52,823 in funding from the Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub Pilot program to create a second phase of this project to follow up on these next steps in 2025 and 2026. This project also strengthened local capacity by building experience in the Wahkiakum MRC to lead future engagement activities and establishing the MRC as a trusted organization to lead community based coastal resilience efforts in the future.
National Fish and Wildlife Federation (NFWF) Lower Willapa Resilience Project
Led by Pacific Conservation District in collaboration with the cities of South Bend and Raymond, the Port of Willapa Harbor, and Washington Sea Grant, the Life Along the Lower Willapa project occurring between 2024-2026 will advance habitat restoration, nature-based risk reduction projects for people and ecosystems, and holistic flood management and habitat improvement approaches across the lower Willapa River. All together, this work will prevent contamination of Willapa Bay from flood events and minimize damage to ecosystems from ongoing emergency response efforts and lack of planning. This will assist survival of economically vital species such as shorebirds, shellfish, salmon, Dungeness crab, and more, while also providing benefits in the event of tsunami inundation. This will be achieved through community outreach to both educate the public and inform the project team about local priorities, design charettes to develop potential paths forward, focused stakeholder engagement to address hurdles to implementation, and development of design concepts to advance through future funding opportunities.
Conceptual solutions will emphasize sustainable and regenerative approaches such as habitat restoration, green stormwater infrastructure, and living shorelines, as well as benefits to local economic development and improved or new recreation opportunities by integrating this work into public spaces. Resulting design concepts are expected to create a network of flooding-adaptive projects across this 5-mile stretch of shoreline, varying in scale from parcel-scale initiatives (e.g. rain gardens, tide gate alterations) to drainage sub-basin scale interventions (e.g. stormwater detention basins and infiltration strategies) to multi-acre slough and shoreline restoration projects.
Early-stage discussions have identified potential resilience project designs and ongoing discussion will provide a pivotal and timely opportunity to bring the community together around related flooding issues across South Bend and Raymond.